The flush deepened to scarlet. “What do you mean, farce? I’m trying to do something for this community. I’m not a la-di-da snot going off to the North Side and abandoning people to their fate!”
“What, you think if I’d stayed down here I could’ve saved Wisconsin Steel? Or stopped the assholes at USX from striking one of the last operating plants around here?” I grabbed my peajacket from the bench and angrily thrust my arms into it.
“Vic! Where are you going?”
“Home. I have a dinner date. I want to change clothes.”
“You can’t. I need you,” she wailed loudly. The big eyes were swimming with tears now, a prelude to a squawk to her mother or mine that I was being mean to her. It brought back all the times Gabriella had come to the door—saying “What difference can it make to you, Victoria? Take the child with you”—so forcibly it was all I could do not to slap Caroline’s wide trembling mouth.
“What do you need me for? To make good on a promise you made without consulting me?”
“Ma isn’t going to live much longer,” she shouted. “Isn’t that more important than some stupid-ass date?”
“Certainly. If this were a social occasion, I would call and say excuse me, the little brat next door committed me to something I can’t get out of But this is dinner with a client. He’s temperamental but he pays on time and I like to keep him happy.”
Tears were streaming across the freckles now. “Vic, you never take me seriously. I told you when we were discussing this how important it would be for Ma if you came to visit. And you completely forgot. You still think I’m five years old and nothing I say or think matters.”
That shut me up. She had a point. And if Louisa was that sick, I really ought to see her.
“Oh, all right. I’ll phone and change my plans. One last time.”
The tears disappeared instantly. “Thanks, Vic. I won’t forget it. I knew I could count on you.”
“You mean you knew you could make another end run around me,” I said disagreeably.
She laughed. “Let me show you where the phones are.”
“I’m not senile yet—I can still find them. And no, I won’t sneak off while you’re not looking,” I added, seeing her uneasy look.
She grinned. “As God is your witness?”
It was an old pledge, picked up from her mother’s drunk Uncle Stan, who used it to prove he was sober.
“As God is my witness,” I agreed solemnly. “I just hope Graham’s feelings aren’t so hurt, he decides not to pay his bill.”
I found the pay phones near the front entrance and wasted several quarters before running Darrough Graham down at the Forty-Nine Club. He wasn’t happy—he had made reservations at the Filagree—but I managed to end the conversation on a friendly note. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I made my way back to the gym.
2
Bringing Up Baby
St. Sophia gave the Lady Tigers a tough ride, leading through much of the second half. The play was intense, much faster paced than in my basketball years. Two starters for the Lady Tigers fouled out with seven minutes left, and things looked bad. Then the toughest Saint guard went out with three minutes left. The Tigers’ star forward, who’d been penned in all evening, came to life, scoring eight unanswered points. The home team won 54-51.
I found myself cheering as eagerly as anyone. I even felt a nostalgic warmth for my own high school team, which surprised me: my adolescent memories are so dominated by my mother’s illness and death, I guess I’ve forgotten having any good times.
Nancy Cleghorn had left to attend a meeting, but Diane Logan and I joined the rest of our old team in the locker room to congratulate our successors and wish them well in the regional semifinals. We didn’t stay long: they clearly thought we were too old to understand basketball, let alone have played it.
Diane came over to say good-bye to me. “You couldn’t pay me enough to relive my adolescence,” she said, brushing my cheek with her own. “I’m going back to the Gold Coast. And I’m definitely staying there. Take it easy, Warshawski.” She was gone in a shimmer of silver fox and Opium.
Caroline hovered anxiously around the locker-room door, worried I would leave without her. She was so tense I began to feel uneasy about what I was going to find at her house. She’d acted just this way when she’d dragged me home from college one weekend, ostensibly because Louisa had hurt her back and needed help replacing a broken window. After I got there I found she expected me to explain why she’d given Louisa’s little pearl ring to the St. Wenceslaus Lenten fund drive.
“Is Louisa really sick?” I demanded as we finally left the locker room.
She looked at me soberly. “Very sick, Vic. You’re not going to like seeing her.”
“What’s the rest of your agenda, then?”